Friday, June 6, 2014

Establishment Republicans who have for years operated under
the threat of "getting primaried" by conservative challengers are
hoping to turn the tables in Michigan, where there’s an all-out brawl to oust
tea party favorite Rep. Justin Amash.

Congressman Justin Amash (R)
3rd District Michigan

Amash has become a polarizing figure within the Republican
caucus, according to Politico, and some of his colleagues aren’t pulling
punches in taking on the Michigander and his hardline anti-tax, anti-spending,
anti-federal government stances.

Retiring Congressman Mike Rogers 8th District MI (R)

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., called Amash, "al-Qaeda’s
best friend in the Congress." While
at the same time a fellow Michigan Republican, Rep. Mike Rogers was entertaining an Iman who has ties to terrorist organizations. Could it be that Justin Amash is trying to end the NSA spying on American Citizens which Rogers and Nunes both support?

Rogers said Amash is "completely out of line with"
voters in his district.

"He votes more with the Democrats than with the
Republicans, and that’s not out of principle, that’s out of him branding
himself as something different," said Rogers, who has contributed $5,000
to Amash’s primary opponent, Brian Ellis.

Amash’s countered: "I vote less often with (House
Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi, the real San Francisco Democrat, than any member
of Congress."

How can you vote with Democrats more than Republicans and
rarely vote on the same side as Pelosi, the House’s top Democrat? Something
isn’t adding up here.

How Amash has voted

Looking at Amash’s record on OpenCongress.org, a website from the
nonpartisan Sunshine Foundation that aggregates voting records.

The site also studies which colleague on each side of the
aisle votes with members of Congress most and least since January 2013.

Pelosi’s profile page says the Republican she least often
votes with is, indeed, Amash. The two have been on the same side of just 22
percent of votes.

That’s partly achieved by Amash staking out positions that
put him against most of Congress on widely bipartisan measures.

For example, Amash was one of only two House members to vote
against a bill to reauthorize spending for the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children to assist local law enforcement agencies in training for and
coordinating efforts to rescue missing children. On Facebook, Amash said the
bill created federal bureaucracy and the tax dollars would be better spent
locally. (Republicans can criticize Amash’s record, but he’s unique in his
diligence about explaining nearly all of his votes on Facebook.)

So if Amash seldom votes with Pelosi, is it possible he
still votes with Democrats more, as Rogers said? In a word, no.

As a whole, Amash has more often sided with the GOP caucus.
Amash’s profile on OpenCongress.org says he has voted with his party 82 percent
of the time since January 2013.

There are certainly many Republicans who toe the party line
more closely. Rogers, for example, was with the majority of his GOP colleagues
for 96 percent of roll calls since 2013. But there are Republicans who vote
with the GOP less often than Amash this Congress, too, though none in Michigan.

On some issues, though, Amash has joined forces with
Democrats. His high-profile fight to curb NSA funding for metadata collection —
which put Amash on the map with civil libertarians — enlisted a coalition of
Republicans and Democrats weary of the military-industrial complex.

Rogers noted that in 2012, a Congressional Quarterly
analysis found Amash’s votes put him on the same side of President Barack Obama
51 percent of the time..

The analysis only looked at 61 votes that year where Obama
had a stated position. It includes many consequential bills, but it’s just a
fraction of the total votes taken in 2012. Further, in 2011 and 2013, Amash was
opposite Obama 75 percent of the time.

But it did help us find a few interesting examples of Amash
voting with Obama’s favored positions.

For example, Amash voted "no" on a GOP bill in
2012 that would have extended lower rates for student loans and pay for it with
cuts to Obamacare. It passed the House despite a veto threat from Obama.

On his Facebook page, Amash said he sided against it because
he didn’t believe the cuts covered the cost of lowering student loan rates.

Also in 2012, he voted against Republicans on a bill to
replace across-the-board spending cuts (the so-called "sequester")
with other more targeted cuts, while lifting spending caps on the military.
Obama, instead, wanted to replace the sequester with tax increases and cut in
other ways; Amash said he opposed the Republican proposal because it increased
spending.

More recently, Amash was one of just three Republicans (and
20 lawmakers in total) not to vote for more sanctions against Iran last July.
At the time, the Obama administration was asking for some leeway from Congress
to approach the newly elected Iranian regime with alternatives. Amash later
said of his vote: "If our goal is peaceful reform within Iran, it would be
wise to give the new president an opportunity to talk before turning to new
threats."

But again, these are a relatively small number of
high-profile votes. Congressional Quarterly found Amash never voted with his
party less than 85 percent of the time in a given yea